Emmy Rossum Says 'Shameless' Nudity Complicated Her Dating Life

Emmy Rossum says the nude scenes she filmed for nine seasons of "Shameless" made dating difficult because men arrived with fixed assumptions about her.

"It got quite tricky because of the nudity on the show," Rossum told Maria Sharapova on an episode of the podcast "Pretty Tough." "All of the guys that I would go out with had preconceived notions of who I was or how I was sexually."

Rossum played Fiona Gallagher on the Showtime series, which ran for nine seasons with her in the role. She said some of the conversations that followed were "bizarre," and she described one exchange in particular that stood out.

A man she was dating, who wanted a career in politics, questioned whether her on-screen exposure could hurt his ambitions. "He was like, 'I really want to be president someday.' And I was like, 'Wow, that's a great goal,'" Rossum recalled. "He's like, 'But I feel like running for office dating someone who's been exposed in the way that you have — do you think that would be tricky for me?' And I was like, 'This is an insane conversation to have.'"

Rossum was 24 when she began "Shameless." She said that age made the experience of dating while playing Fiona especially hard, as she was still forming her identity as a person and as an artist.

"You're trying to figure out who you are," she said. "You're coming into your own as an artist. And there's also all these preconceived notions about you that are out there that are associated with [you] because your body is your art, right? And people can get confused."

Before "Shameless," Rossum had already built a substantial film career. She starred in "The Day After Tomorrow," "Mystic River" and "The Phantom of the Opera," the last of which earned her a Golden Globes nomination.

Her account adds a performer's perspective to the ongoing conversation about nudity on screen and the assumptions audiences — and potential partners — carry from fictional roles into real life.